1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telephone answering systems and in particular to a telephone answering system that, upon receipt of an incoming call, can inform a caller of a callee's whereabouts and connect the caller to the callee.
2. Description of the Related Art
A telephone answering system responds to an incoming telephone call if the call is not answered by a person. Such systems may play a prerecorded message or record a message from the caller. Some such systems may offer the caller additional choices, such as the ability to access individual extensions by dialing extension numbers or individual persons or departments by spelling the person's or department's name on the caller's telephone keypad. Telephone answering systems may also offer a caller, through the use of the caller's keypad, the ability to connect to a backup person in the absence of the party called, the person to whom the call is directed.
However, a caller may still prefer to speak directly to the party called, or callee. Thus, many telephone systems allow an individual, called a user, to program the system to transfer to another telephone number calls directed to the user's telephone number. However, a user with multiple engagements away from his telephone may have to separately route his incoming calls to a telephone at each of the locations he expects to visit. Furthermore, such programming of the telephone, and particularly the repeated reprogramming of the telephone, represent an inconvenience to the user.
Therefore, a system is desired that can access a user's electronic calendar and, when the user is absent from his telephone, route incoming calls to the location where the user is scheduled to be.